


5 Times People Realize That YJ is Batman's Team

by keykiyoshi7443



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Dick Grayson is Robin, Funny, Gen, LiveJournal Prompt, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6850231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keykiyoshi7443/pseuds/keykiyoshi7443
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is common knowledge that Batman bends the rules of being a superhero by some of the stuff he does. Especially when he is interrogating someone for information. Even the Justice League are somewhat disturbed by his "methods" on occasion. So seeing as he probably helps train YJ along with Black Canary... </p>
<p>5 times it shows that Batman is the team's mentor and 1 time the mentors try and do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wally West - Kid Flash

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/196894) by Anonymous. 



> This is based off the prompt in the link. I did take a couple ideas from the fill, but this is mainly my idea. I was left unsatisfied with how short the fill was, so I'm currently writing a longer fill.

It’s common knowledge among the League that Batman was in charge of their special ops team; Young Justice. But at the end of the day, they were still the League’s partners and they still have to patrol their own cities. Sure they had the occasional mission, and the frequent training sessions, but they always had time for their original mentors.

This was something that the Flash was very grateful for. He enjoyed spending time with his nephew, since he didn’t get nearly enough time as of late. Wally was always on a mission, training or hanging out with Dick. The only times that Barry even saw the young superhero was when he came over for dinner or when they went out on patrol.

Now was one of those times. They were out chasing after all the Rogues. It seemed that they thought it’d be a great idea to break out all together and go cause trouble in separate and far apart places. Sure they had super speed, but there was only 2 of them. There was only so much that they could do.

They were currently chasing after Trickster, who was causing all kinds of trouble - Barry didn’t even want to think about where he got the giant rubber duck - while the others were raiding various places ranging from ice cream trucks to banks. All those who weren’t stealing were doing their best to distract them.

It was working that’s for sure. Despite having 2 speedsters, the younger Rogue had managed to evade capture for well over 2 hours. How does that even happen? It wasn’t even with smart plans either. They’d literally fallen over a speed bump in their pursuit of the criminal.

Well, technically he’d tripped, but Wally hadn’t. He’d simply jumped over the speed bump without missing a beat. How had he not thought of that? When he’d tripped, he’d gone flying into a building. It’d only taken him a couple seconds for him to recover and continue running, but by then Wally had already zoomed ahead. Since when was the kid so fast?

By the time Barry caught up to Wally, Trickster had been caught and Wally was holding him up by his collar. Sure Trickster was small - Wally was actually around the same size - but last time he’d checked, Wally had never worked on his strength, preferring brains to brawn. He wouldn’t be able to support Tricksters weight for long.

“Hey Kid Flash! You got me, so you wanna put me down?” Trickster asked nervously. Barry mentally frowned, why would the Trickster be nervous? He was friends with Wally, it wasn’t like Wally would actually hurt him. But then he saw Wally’s face. He was smiling, but it wasn’t like his usual smiles, though it was equally as bright.

His normal smiles were filled with simple childish joy. But despite how bright the smile looked at first glance, this one was cold. If you looked closely, the smile was just a little too wide. It seemed forced - fake. But then the smile was gone and his entire demeanor changed.

In an instant, he had gone from a chilling smile to a dark and dangerous look. The smile dropped from his face and was replaced by a snarl. His eyebrows furrowed and hooded his eyes slightly. There was a gleam in his eyes that promised pain.

Barry was incredibly unsettled by the sight of such a dark expression on his nephew’s face. He was only able to marvel at it for a second before his attention was drawn back to the Trickster. He’d gotten this look of shock on his face that quickly turned to pure terror.

The look was caused by Wally lurching forward towards the edge of the building, dangling the Trickster over the edge. Barry’s eyes widened in horror. What was Wally thinking? Wally was definitely not strong enough to bear the Tricksters entire weight with his arms extended for any amount of time. This was getting dangerous.

Wally’s arms could give out, and if they did it was a long way for the Trickster to fall. “Well now that I’ve gotten your attention, what’s the plan?” Wally snarled. It was such a polar opposite from his usual behavior. Where had this come from? Apparently the Trickster seemed to think that Wally wasn’t serious and was actually pulling his leg.

Barry was hoping that this was all a joke. It’d be a horrible joke, but Wally couldn’t actually be this scary and dark. “Hey Baby Flash, you can stop playing now. It’s not really funny anymore.” Trickster said. He smiled nervously, trying to hide the fear he was feeling at being held so high off the ground.

Wally simply sneered at him and shook him roughly, pulling him slightly closer. Just enough for the criminal to place his toes on the edge of the building, relieving some weight from Wally’s arms. Barry sighed in relief knowing that Wally’s lack of physical strength wouldn’t accidentally kill the Rogue.

But that did nothing to make Barry fell better. Wally’s facial expression turned even darker. “You think this is a joke?” Wally demanded sharply. The low growl of his voice was already intimidating, but then he kicked it up another notch. As soon as he’d finished speaking his suit began to drain of all its bright colours.

It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on him and washed away all the colour. The colours just drained away and left a dark gray and black theme behind. There was bits of maroon on certain places, but it was overall a very dark take on the Flash uniform.

Barry vaguely remembered Wally saying something about their new ‘incognito’ uniforms. He wondered if this was his. “Listen, I’m not in a good mood right now. You and your buddies are causing a lot of trouble for me. Now a fall from this height won’t actually kill you, but it’ll hurt a hell of a lot. So… are you ready to answer some questions?” Wally asked in a cold tone that left no room for discussion.

The Trickster gulped nervously and nodded his head frantically. “Alright then, what’s you plan? Cause mass panic? Rob as many places as possible?” Wally, no Kid Flash asked. Trickster shook his head, “who do you think we are Baby Flash? No, we’re not planning anything big! We just wanted to get out and about! We’ve been locked up for a while, and when we were out you weren’t here!” Trickster yelled pouting like a disappointed child.

“So when we heard you’d be on patrol tonight, we all broke out so we could play” Trickster admitted. He no longer looked like the mischievous criminal that he was by night. Instead he looked like he’d been sent to the principal’s office for doing something wrong.

Kid Flash looked him right in the eye as if searching for a lie. After a few moments, his stiff posture began to relax. He pulled Trickster back onto the roof of the building. After making sure that Trickster wasn’t going to fall off the roof, Kid Flash raised a hand and pressed the Flash symbol on his chest.

As the colour returned to his suit, Kid Flash transitioned back to Wally. He smiled a bright honest smile that the Trickster returned shyly. It was such a polar opposite from only seconds before that Barry barely suppressed a flinch in surprise. But then Wally was moving and Trickster was on the floor. Confused, Barry looked down and was surprised to see he was tied up by… zip ties.

Since when did they resort to zip ties? He looked up just in time to see Wally pull the flare that Trickster kept to let the other Rogues know if he needed help out of his pocket. He released the flare and zipped over to Barry. “Come on! I doubt that the Rogues are going to do anything else tonight. Let’s go have dinner!” Wally said excitedly. He grabbed Barry’s arm and began to drag him in the direction of his house.

“You weren’t going to actually drop him, right?” Barry asked as they ran back to where Iris was waiting for them with a big meal. Wally wouldn’t actually kill or injure the young trickster. The were around the same age, it’d just be wrong.

“Of course not, uncle B! Heroes don’t kill! I just scared him a bit,” Wally replied flippantly, as if he hadn’t just threatened someone’s life. Barry was concerned, he’d never encouraged Wally to use any sort of interrogation techniques. They usually just caught the bad guys and called it a night.

His nephew was becoming more like a Bat and less like a speedster.


	2. Kaldur'ahm - Aqualad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is a really long chapter! ...I don't even like Aqualad...
> 
> Oh yeah, I put the city as Atlantis/Poseidonis because I cannot for the life of me remember which one the show uses
> 
> I didn't mean for this one to turn out so long, so sorry to disappoint when all the others are a LOT shorter than this one. 
> 
> Superboy's is next.

Tula and Garth stood outside of the zetabeam area, anxiously awaiting the arrival of their friend. They hadn’t seen him in months, not since his last vacation. He almost never had the time to come down to Atlantis/Poseidonis anymore. He was always busy with some mission or a stupid training session. It was almost as if he didn’t even try to make time to see them anymore.

Tula shook her head, she shouldn’t be thinking like that. Of course Kaldur tried, he was just really busy. Evil never took a break, but that didn’t mean she missed him any less. She bounced on the balls of her feet as she waited impatiently for something, _anything,_ to happen.

“Do you think he’ll be tired? Do you think he just came back from a mission?” she asked Garth. He raised an eyebrow at her rapid fire questioning. He too, cared a great deal about their mutual friend. He was just as anxious as Tula to see Kaldur again. They had been close friends.

He worried about Kaldur, possibly even more than Tula did. Tula held confidence in Kaldur’s ability to protect himself. But that wasn’t what Garth was worried about. He worried about whether Kaldur’s team would be able to have Kaldur’s back. He had, of course, heard the tales of how skilled the dynamic duo of Robin and Batman were, and how the Flash and Kid Flash could take out an army in seconds.

But how well could they possibly work with Kaldur? Kaldur had gotten into the sidekick game a bit later, would they really follow his leadership. They technically had more experience than the newly named Aqualad. From old tales, they seemed like pretty headstrong young heroes. What if them not obeying Kaldur’s orders and following the plan caused Kaldur to be hurt?

There was also the entire other half of the team. Miss Martian, Superboy and Artemis had all become heroes years after Kaldur and the others. They were still so new to the hero gig. They could make rookie mistakes and cost them the mission. Deep down, the biggest problem that Garth had with Kaldur’s team was that it wasn’t him or Tula. He couldn’t be there to watch his friend’s back and make sure he didn’t get hurt. He didn’t trust the other heroes.

Sometimes he wished that he had agreed to join Kaldur in being King Orin’s superhero partner. At least then he could be sure that he was doing everything possible to keep Kaldur safe. That didn’t mean he didn’t trust his king to look after Kaldur. In fact, King Orin was the only one he trusted to keep Kaldur safe other than Tula and himself.

But he knew Kaldur, and Kaldur was an incredibly self sacrificing person. That was apparent considering his reaction towards finding out that his long time crush was dating his best friend. Instead of freaking out, getting angry, or even trying to convince them it was a bad idea, he congratulated them and wished them well.

He didn’t suddenly stop communicating with them either. If anything he began to talk to them more, constantly pestering him about when he would ask Tula to marry him. But that’s beside the point. Now that Kaldur has joined a team, the King could not always be there to protect Kaldur. More often than not, Kaldur was with the team. He rarely left ‘Mount Justice’.

King Orin spent way more time in Atlantis/Poseidonis than Kaldur did. He rarely entered the sea, favouring land. That wasn’t healthy for an Atlantean. Which is why they were so excited for Kaldur’s arrival. He would be spending the entire week with them underneath the sea so they would be able to catch up on everything they’d missed in Kaldur’s life. They were also going to make sure that he took care of himself and just relaxed during his vacation.

If he wouldn’t take care of himself when he was away (and they knew he wouldn’t, he would be too worried about the rest of the team), then they would make sure that this week would be completely stress free. It would be a proper vacation. “Well whatever condition he’s in when the King brings him back, we’ll take care of him” Garth said.

Luckily they didn’t have to wait much longer for the arrival of the King and their friend. Only a few minutes later the zetatubes lit up, and a mechanical voice announced the arrival of Aquaman and Aqualad. Tula perked up and ran to the entrance, eager to see Kaldur. Garth was not far behind her. Almost as soon as the voice finished announcing their presence, two people stepped out of the light.

The taller of the two took a confident step and began to swim towards them, every bit as confident as before. The second figure, a bit shorter but holding himself in a way that only leaders did. After finishing the first step, the confidence seemed to fade slightly, though he hid it well, He began to swim tentatively, lightly embracing the water as if it was an old friend he’d lost touch with.

He glided elegantly and silently through the water towards them, his confidence growing with every second in the water. Eventually he caught up to the figure, and they met with Garth and Tula a couple feet away from the zeta area. Tula’s eyes swept over Kaldur briefly before she launched herself at him, pulling him into a bear hug.

Kaldur’s eyes widened a bit and he glanced briefly at Garth before he hesitantly returned Tula’s embrace, Seeing that Kaldur wasn’t opposed to being hugged, Garth also launched himself at him and joined Tula is squeezing the life out of their friend. King Orin stared at them, chuckling softly to himself. Kaldur turned his head to stare at him, silently asking for help. King Orin’s eyes shone with mirth at how confused his protege looked.

After a couple moments, Garth and Tula released their friend from their embrace. Keeping one of their arms around Kaldur’s shoulders and waist respectively, the two turned to face their King. “Thank you for bringing him back, my King.” Tula said as she bowed her head respectively. Garth nodded his head in agreement. Kind Orin smiled at them, “it was no problem! Kaldur’ahm deserves a vacation! I think Young Justice might have actually completed more missions since our last break than the League did.” he said.

The two students beamed at him. They gave one last bow each before they began to drag Kaldur away. King Orin waved at them once before he too, began to swim away. Once King Orin was out of sight they stopped dragging him. Tula held Kaldur at arms length away from herself, her skillful gaze searching for any injury.

“You’re not hurt are you? You’d tell us if you were right?" Tula asked distractedly. Garth stared into Kaldur’s eyes, he’d know if he lied or not.

Kaldur rolled his eyes in exasperation, “no, I’m not injured” he said calmly. Garth stared at him in shock. Kaldur had rolled his eyes. Mr. Respect-Everyone-All-The-Time who never showed any sign of acting like an ordinary teen, just rolled his eyes.

He’d done one of the most irritating things. No one can really blame Garth for reacting the way he did. Ever since they were children, Kaldur had always been the serious one that never got any jokes. He’d always frowned upon mischief and anything Garth did to undermine their teacher’s authority. He’d never understood what Garth saw in playing jokes on their teachers.

He’d tried to convince Kaldur to help him prank someone, but the one time he’d tried, Kaldur had managed to completely sabotage the prank. It still went off perfectly… just not on the intended target. To this day, Garth still had no idea how Kaldur managed to get the teachers to prank him.

The point is, Kaldur rolling his eyes is incredibly different from what he knew about Kaldur. Tula, who was still busy making sure that Kaldur wasn’t lying, didn’t notice. Once she was satisfied that Kaldur wasn’t injured, she released him from her hold. “Well if you’re sure…” she said reluctantly.

After being released from Tula’s scrutiny they began to swim towards the courtyard, Queen Mera would be teaching a lesson, and Tula and Garth were required to help, but Queen Mera had agreed to allow Kaldur to sit in on the class, and depending on what they were doing, he could participate. They had told Kaldur about this before hand, and he had shown interest in watching how they trained.

He wanted to see how different their training was. He called it a learning experience, and if something peaked his interest, he claimed that he would use the knowledge to help him lead his team. Garth mentally scoffed at that. He highly doubted their training in _water magic_ would be able to help humans. But at least Kaldur seemed interested. Tula had worried that Kaldur wouldn’t wish to attend because he’d feel self-conscious about his own skills.

But Kaldur didn’t seem bothered at all that he would be sitting in on an expert's class. After they’d heard Kaldur - or Aqualad as he was better known as by the Atlanteans - was going to be sitting in on a class, the students immediately began to volunteer.

They couldn’t accept everyone, so they’d had a tournament to decide who was skilled enough for the lesson. But not everyone who had made it into the single class was excited to see Aqualad. There was a group of students who just wanted to show off their skills to the Queen. They had major authority issues and were incredibly arrogant. Tula hated them and had difficulty keeping a cool head when teaching.

Queen Mera had picked up on Tula’s displeasure, but she had decided to let it be. They were still able to function. When it began to affect their teamwork and growth she would step in. Despite the fact that some of the chosen students were a little… difficult, Garth and Tula were very excited. They too, would get to show off their own skills.

They knew Kaldur had been given extensive training from King Orin, but they’d spent years honing their magic skills. They knew Kaldur hadn’t kept up with his training in magic, so the were confident they were better than him. It would be interesting to spar with him. They’d have to do that later.

Luckily, just short of 20 minutes later, the class began to trickle in. Tula turned to face Kaldur as she moved to get up from her pace at Kaldur’s side of the bench. “You're going to love this!” she exclaimed as her face filled with excitement. She wanted to show off her teaching skills and how well her students were doing under her tutelage.

Garth smiled warmly at his friend as he stood up. He too, was proud of his students. He was sure that if Kaldur ever took them to the surface to see his team he would be the same. Being a mentor and a leader does that to you. The students lined up, and some of the less disciplined openly gawked at Aqualad.

Queen Mera clapped her hands together to draw everyone's attention. She smiled softly at their sheepish expressions. “Good morning class, today we will be having a guest sit in on our class. I'm sure you're all familiar with Aqualad,” she said as she gestured towards where Kaldur was sitting. He smiled shyly and stood up, walking forward to stand beside Tula and Garth.

He stood tall, with his chin tilted slightly upward. He looked confident and some of the more star struck ones openly gaped at him. Others automatically straightened up due to his commanding presence. Then there was the group of arrogant students. They were a year older than everyone else and openly scoffed at Kaldur. They looked down on the fact that he hadn't kept up with his water magic training. Instead staying on the surface with _humans_.

They weren't just arrogant, they were racist too. They thought they were better, and were constantly trying to prove just how good they are. They often tried to teach others to show that they were better than Tula. They hadn't told Kaldur about any of this. Garth mentally winced, this would be interesting.

Kaldur smiled softly, “it is an honour to be here.” he said kindly. Some of the students who had been a bit apprehensive about Kaldur’s presence relaxed slightly at his humble and calming tone.

But one of the most arrogant and irritating students - his name was Morgan - turned his nose up and sneered at Kaldur. Kaldur simply ignored him. After that, the lesson began and went rather smoothly. Tula and Garth flitted between students, offering aid where it was required. After an hour or so, Kaldur seemed confident enough to offer his own aid.

Queen Mera had of course, told him he was welcome to interfere with the class. It _was_ a demonstration for him after all. In some places his help was welcomed with a hero worshiping gaze. In others… Well it was sort of the opposite. Morgan - that one really arrogant student that almost everyone else hated, yes he was even getting on the queen’s nerves - had been doing this one exercise wrong for the past half hour.

But no one wanted to tell him that.

Kaldur walked up to him and casually said, “your stance is wrong.” This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, and Tula couldn't say she didn't see Morgan’s outburst coming. He glared at Kaldur and kept running through the routine, fighting with an imaginary opponent.

“Well, I've been doing it like this for years. No one’s ever said anything. And it certainly hasn't been a problem in a fight. My stance is fine,” he snarled, moving through the imaginary fight with harsher blows. These clearly betraying his displeasure at Kaldur trying to correct him. Kaldur shook his head and took a step forward.

“Well, it makes it far too easy to do this” he said as he shoved his foot into Morgan’s.

Morgan had been mid step, and since his center of gravity was off, he went flying. All the other students stopped and gaped at them. With one small move - a step really, although there was quite a bit of force behind it even though he made it look effortless- he'd taken out one of the best people in their class. The students hated to admit it, but while Morgan may be a horrible person, but he was skilled. They did know that.

They stood in awe. They were never trained in anything other than water magic. Even when they sparred, they only fought with water. Some of the younger and more innocent (well, naive would probably be a better word) students didn’t even know that fighting doesn't always have to be with magic. Your body is also an incredibly important weapon.

Morgan had begun to get up. Because he had been angry and his movements had a lot of force behind them, he had gone flying and hit a pillar. Luckily he’d used the water to make his fall less painful, but it could only do so much. The fall still hurt. He struggled to stand and began to stumble over towards Kaldur. With every step, he grew more and more confident as the adrenaline began to kick in.

The other students backed up slightly at the angry aura that surrounded the stomping teen. But Kaldur didn’t even blink an eye at the menacing aura. The sheer amount of anger he was emitting shocked both Garth and Tula. It even shocked the queen.

Morgan was arrogant, but the most he'd ever done was scoff at someone. He looked ready to  kill Kaldur. That made Garth and Tula worried. Sure Kaldur was strong, but he hadn’t kept up with his magic, and Morgan was one of the best. “You’re going to pay for that!” Morgan growled. Kaldur raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I invite you to try.” he said in a mocking tone. Morgan smirked and lunged towards Kaldur, dragging water with him. Kaldur’s eyes shone with interest. He flipped out of the way and called over his shoulder, “It’ll be interesting to see how strong the future protectors of Atlantis/Poseidonis are.” The comment seemed to push Morgan to try harder, and he began to attack Kaldur viciously.

Kaldur was dodging nimbly, but that didn’t stop them from being worried. When Morgan sent out a particularly large attack, Tula reached out as if to stop him. It was a high class attack, and no matter how good at dodging you were, anyone would be hard pressed to avoid this attack unscathed.

But she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. Queen Mera was watching the fight with thinly veiled interest. “Kaldur can handle this. It _is_ his fight after all. Just watch” she said. They were reluctant to, but they did want to see how this ended.

Despite the size of the attack, Kaldur didn’t look worried at all. A couple of seconds before the attack hit, he pulled something out from seemingly nowhere - upon closer inspection it appeared to be… a utility belt? Since when did Aqualad have a utility belt?- and tossed it towards the attack.

Surely such a small device couldn’t stop that attack right? Wrong. The little object they now knew to be a bomb, exploded and completely stopped the attack from hitting Kaldur. But it also created a large cloud of smoke (?) and they could no longer see Kaldur anymore. Garth looks around, there’s almost nowhere to hide and yet, he cannot see his friends anywhere. Then there was a cry of outrage from Morgan and all of their gazes were drawn from the explosion back to Morgan.

What they saw surprised them. There stood Kaldur attaching an inhibitor collar to Morgan before he even had a chance to fight back. Then he leaped a good distance away from Morgan before he could retaliate. “I wonder how you’ll do in a real fight. That was far too easy. You shouldn’t only rely on long range attacks you know” Kaldur said with a slightly disappointing tone.

Morgan growled and moved to throw another attack, but when it didn’t come, he looked confused. “What did you do to me?” he demanded as he tries to remove the collar. Kaldur stood to the side, stance completely relaxed. “Was I not clear? Well let’s make this into an official lesson then. Can you tell me what you’d do without your magic? How will you defeat me now that you are unable to use magic?” Kaldur said thoughtfully in a very sincere tone, almost too sincere.

His painfully false sincerity seemed to get Morgan even angrier. There was practically smoke coming out of his ears, and his entire face had gone bright red. He charged at Kaldur in a blind rage. Their friend wore a tiny smirk that was so unlike Kaldur, he never gloated or was overconfident.

As soon as Morgan got within 5 feet, Kaldur moved. He moved faster than he should have been able to in the water. As Morgan lunged at him without any set attack in mind, Kaldur grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back and twisted his other arm to follow. He kicked the back of Morgan’s knees and he was down for the count. After quickly placing cuffs on both his wrists and his ankles, Kaldur stood up.

Morgan squirmed on the ground, trying in vain to escape his bonds. “Forgive me, my Queen. This lesson needed to be taught by demonstration, and not by a lecture.” Kaldur said apologetically. Queen Mera shook her head and smiled fondly at Kaldur.

“Don’t worry about it dear, please continue,” she said kindly. She looked just a bit too eager to see what Kaldur would do next.

He bowed his head respectfully before turning to address the class. “You saw how fast your fast your classmate went down as soon as he was no longer able to use his magic. What are you going to do if you are unable to fight? You are the future guards. The future people who will be in charge of protecting everyone. More and more of our enemies are getting their hands on power inhibiting collars.”

Kaldur folded his hands behind his back as he continued, “Yes this does affect you. They can and _do_ fight without powers. And they fight against metas everyday. They know how to take you down, but what are you going to do? Can any of you actually fight hand to hand?” he asked. The students looked down at the ground sheepishly. Kaldur took that as a ‘no’.

“I know that some of you look down on me, for choosing the surface and not continuing my training with magic. But know that your knowledge of magic does not give you the advantage against me. I fight against people stronger than you all the time. And what little magic I know is useless against them.” He leaned forward menacingly, “And I won anyway” he finished.

After that little speech he released Morgan and walked back to the bench. “Back to practicing!” Garth barked as they (meaning himself and Tula) ran towards Kaldur.

“Oh my gosh! You were so cool taking Morgan out just like that! Since when were you so good at fighting without powers?” Tula gushed.

Kaldur smiled softly at her, “I am trained by Batman” he said, offering that as a simple explanation. Well… that did explain some things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please leave a comment down below! If you want to get and email update when I next update this story, please subscribe.


	3. Conner Kent - Superboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I've finished Superboy's. Well technically his was done a couple days ago, but I wrote it in a notebook while at school so I had to type it up too. But I'm almost finished the next part, so you'll probably see that within the next week.

Clark Kent arrive at his apartment late. His fiancee, Lois Lane, hanging off of his arm and ranting about something or another. It probably had a lot to do with what happened at the Daily Planet. He was tired after the day he’d had too.

When he’d arrived in the morning, it had seemed like any other day. But then all hell had broken loose. Everything that could go wrong did. It seemed that the universe decided that everything horrible needed to happen right then in Metropolis. And because everything just went to hell, he wasn’t even able to sneak away to go help. The higher ups had them all working to the bone to cover everything that was happening.

But just as things began to look real rough and Clark was considered saying ‘screw my job’, someone arrived at the scene. At first Superman was worried that it was a villain who had come to claim responsibility for all the chaos. And then he recognized who it was. It was none other than his clone, and at first, all the others thought that it was Superman himself before they got a clear shot of him.

He wore his typical black shirt with the Red Superman symbol. He wore heavy duty cargo pants and what appeared to be steel re-enforced combat boots. Some reporters had speculated that Superman just changed his look, but the scowl on his face was so unlike the typical Superman look that many doubted they were the same person. The civilians also noticed that his powers were slightly different too. Remarking on different social media that he couldn’t fly. They also made comments that he looked really young, as in his mid teens.

Some reporters (his colleges among them) were bothered by this and were making headlines with the newest story “Superman has a son?” This caused Lois to send him the you-better-explain-later look. Superboy had spent the entire day cleaning up the mess Superman should have been helping with. He had an incredibly displeased look on his face the entire time, but with the absence of Superman, the city took what it could get.

As he was finishing up clearing the rubble from a building that had fallen, he got caught by some of the on scene reporters. They’d crowded him and talked all at once, demanding answers. Clark had been worried that he would lash out and get angry at the annoying reporters. But he’d held a stoic facial expression, only displaying mild disdain for the reporters.

He passed off most of the questions with a simple “no comment” and a blank stare which told most of the reporters they would be getting nothing more from him. But some persisted in questioning his connection to Superman. This was the one thing he made a statement about. “Other than my powers and hero alias… I hold absolutely no attachments to Superman.” and then he leapt away before anyone could ask anything else.

Clark should have been relieved that he didn’t reveal he was his clone, or something more damaging like the fact that he was the clone of both Superman _and_ Lex luthor. And yet he was still bothered by what his clone - Superboy, had said. The fact that he held “absolutely no attachments” to Clark's hero alter-ego was troubling.

He had been worried that Superboy would go rogue, still was in fact. And the fact that he held no attachments to a superhero showed that he was more likely to rebel and possibly betray the League. Clark still stands behind the idea that they should lock Superboy away. He was a loose cannon, far too angry and resentful to properly manage. They didn’t even know if he had secret cameras implanted in his brain or something.

He’d only harm other and himself if he continued. Of course Batman was heavily against that and argued every step of the way. But lately it seems he’d given upon changing his mind. Pretty out of character for the businessman, but Clark let it be. At least he wasn’t bugging Clark about being a mentor, or god forbid a father figure for the boy.

He’d have to question Bruce about Superboy later, possibly even warn him _yet again_ of the impending betrayal of Superboy. He knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when at this point. “Clark!” Lois yelled at him. He turned to look at her, broken from his inner monologue. “Are you actually going to open the door?” she asked, her hands placed on her hips.

He felt a slight blush dust across his cheeks. He only now realized he’d been standing in front of his apartment doing absolutely nothing as he got lost in his thoughts. He quickly unlocked the door and ushered her in. He swept into the kitchen, Lois not far behind, and began to make some hot chocolate. It’d been a long day (sometimes office life was actually more tiring than taking down super villains) they’d earned a cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows.

His apartment was dark as he hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. He often found the dark relaxing. Lois didn’t seem to mind it, so he didn’t bother to turn on more than one light. It was enough to see the kitchen, but it didn’t illuminate the rest of his apartment. He set the finished drinks on the island in the kitchen. Lois had pulled up 2 bar stools and they sat down to share a drink.

“So who was that boy?” she asked after a couple of minutes of silence. Clark froze, should he tell her the truth or just brush her off? “No one important” he said dismissively, faking a sip of his hot chocolate. Then a figure stepped out from the shadows.

“So I’m nothing important now.”

Lois jumped about a foot in the air and Clark nearly spit all over the counter. Superboy was leaning against the fridge, arms crossed over his chest. His face was expressionless, making it incredibly hard to read the boy. “Wh-who are you?” Lois stuttered out. Superboy’s eyes were cold.

“Oh? So he’s told you nothing about me? Figures. Well Miss Lane, the name’s Conner, or Superboy depending on what you prefer. I’m the clone of your boyfriend here and his greatest enemy, Lex Luthor.” he said in a slightly mocking tone, a small smirk on his lips.

Lois’ eyes widened in shock. She shot a slightly hurt look at Superman. He winced slightly. “You weren’t supposed to find out this way.” he told her. His clone scoffed and rolled his eyes. Then Clark turned towards him. “What are you doing here? How’d you even get in? I thought you weren’t supposed to be in the be in the public eye.”

Superboy smirked and leaned forward slightly, “did you actually think they’d lock me away?” he asked in disbelief, “with the amount that Batman pestered you to be in mentor, I thought you would know by now that I’m actually a vigilante and/or superhero, take your pick.” He leaned back slightly, allowing the shadows in the kitchen to hide him somewhat.

“As for how I got in… well since you’ve made it very clear you want nothing to do with me, Batman’s become my mentor. I’ve received actual training so I don’t _die_ on the field, no thanks to you.” he said in a resentful tone. He scowled, losing all signs of his previous amusement. The dark look, looked rather out of place on his face. The scowl looked very familiar, he looked almost like Bruce. And if he wasn’t wearing the Superman logo, he’d look a lot more like a mini Bruce than he did a mini Clark. There was very little of Superman’s own features visible in this moment.

"And a certain _someone_ didn’t show up to take care of the situation today. So I got sent in because Br- Batman thought that the city would prefer a Kryptonian to a Bat from Gotham.” he said stiffly, managing the monotone filled with disdain that all businessmen used and Bruce seemed to have perfected. “Was office life a bit too hard for you, _Clark_?” he asked. Clark blushed and Lois sent him a look before she glared at the clone.

“It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t show up! Work was really busy today!” she said indignantly.

Superboy rolled his eyes and mumbled something that might have been “I wonder why” before he spoke up. “And I’m a special ops team member who just returned from 3 back to back missions” he snarked.

She raised her eyebrow delicately, “A Kryptonian in a special ops team?” she asked in disbelief.

“Not every hero is as horrible at disguising themselves as your boyfriend here.” he growled. “Besides, I wasn’t trained by him. I was trained by Batman. Anyway I just came to let Clark know that he doesn’t need to worry about me going rogue.” he gave a mock salute to Lois before blending into the shadows and disappearing just like Batman does after meetings.

A couple minutes after he ‘left’ (they weren’t quite sure whether he actually left or not) Lois turned to Clark. “What was that?!” she demanded.

He sighed heavily before responding, “That was my clone. He had major anger management issues and is a loose cannon. I still can’t believe that Batman is training him. He could go rogue at anytime, and he’s given him training. Can you imagine if he went and joined Luthor?” he asked her.

Batman had created the ultimate enemy. A teenager with the powers of Superman and the brains and training of Batman. If he ever went rogue it’d be a disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry that it's a lot shorter than the last one. But all the others are gonna be a lot shorter from now on. 
> 
> Please comment and subscribe!


	4. M'gann M'orzz - Miss Martian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I'm sorry for the quality and length of this chapter. I don't know wtf happened, but it sort of got away from me. I don't know why I decided to make it dark, but it just happened. Oh and Roy does not have a super power that allows him to see auras. I was sort of writing in English class and once again the text got away from me, but I was too lazy to go back and re-write so this is what you get.

They were on a mission. Not that unusual, it was just unfortunate that it was on a school night. M’gann had been looking forward to hanging out with some friends (and Conner of course), but then the mission had come up and they’d had to cancel last minute. Needless to say, M’gann was in a bad mood.

The only good thing about this mission was the fact that Roy would be going with them. (Good or bad it _was_ debatable) he’d been going on more and more missions with them. At first they thought that he would be joining the team and these missions were to get him used to the dynamic that they had. They weren't completely wrong, but they _were_ wrong about the specific team he was joining. Instead of Young Justice, he was training to join the Justice League.

They soon found out why. He was absolutely terrible at stealth. Sure he was a strong and formidable opponent in a fight, but he was completely rubbish at espionage. Since Young Justice was a special ops team that specialized in top secret missions that depended on stealth, if Roy joined, he would do more harm than good. A lot of the other League members were terrible at stealth as well (except for Batman of course). He would fit in much better with the League than he would with their team, despite his age.

Roy was now an adult, but somehow he was even more of a wildcard than Superboy. And that's why he was sent to them. He had absolutely no team skills. He had had no idea how to work with anyone. Wally had suspected that this had something to do with the fact that the only person he'd ever really worked with was Green Arrow, or Oliver Queen as he was known as by others.

They didn't exactly have the best relationship, and Roy had often had to take care of his mentor instead of the other way around. It was no wonder he had problems with teamwork, but that made it no less upsetting.

He was always running off and doing his own thing, not obeying Kaldur (or Robin depending on the mission) and almost costing them success. Since then, he'd gotten better at following orders and working with a team, but he was still unable to keep a cool head.

Even Superboy, who was usually angry and reckless was able to work better. Ever since Batman had given up on trying to get Superman to be his mentor and had instead started training Conner himself, Conner had become happier and more of an asset on missions. It was almost like having a super powered Robin, only Robin was still lightyears ahead of Superboy skill-wise.

It made them cringe just thinking about what would happen if Robin _actually_ had super powers. That was certainly a scary thought. Anyway, they'd been trading off when splitting up. Roy would always be with one of them at all times to make sure that he didn't go off plan. (Hey! It's happened… They're working on it) Today, M’gann was stuck with him. It was the first time that he shot sent with her though.

She was usually sent to infiltrate considering her abilities. But today the goal was to capture at least one member of a “gang” from Gotham. Sure it would probably be easier if she disguised herself, but this was Gotham, and it always ends up as more of a chase anyway. Gotham had a special kind of criminal that you just don't see in other cities.

Normally if they were in Gotham with Roy, they'd partner him up with Robin considering he knew Gotham's streets the best. They were still able to patrol Gotham with ease, but Robin spent a good portion of his life in Gotham. They are spending more and more time in Gotham lately though. Ever since Batman took over from Black Canary, he’d been training them in more than just their powers. He didn't want them to be caught unaware if they had an inhibitor collars.

After a couple of months, he'd taken on a more paternal role towards all of them. They all had some form if daddy issues (Wally’s parents really didn't care what happened to him, Kaldur never knew his parents, Conner’s ‘father’ thought he was an abomination and his other father was a super villain, M’gann herself had been rejected by her family because she was a white martian, and Artemis’ entire family was some sort of criminal) and let's be honest, their original mentors did poor jobs of being parental figures.

But oddly enough, Batman or Bruce Wayne - he'd revealed his identity along with Robin’s when he'd brought them to the Batcave (and the manor) for the first time - was an excellent father figure. He was patient with them and incredibly supportive. He promoted education over vigilantism, and helped them whenever they needed it.

He took care of them, and they soon found themselves spending their free time in Gotham at the manor instead of Mount Justice. They rarely used the mountain anymore, it was more of a formality at this point. M’gann and Conner had both moved into the manor and begun attending Gotham Academy, Kaldur stayed in Gotham whenever he was on the surface, and Wally came up with some excuse to tell us parents, and he stayed over often enough that his parents told him to just switch schools if he wasn't going to spend his time in Central City.

They didn't really care as long as he had a roof over his head and wasn't dead. They saved a lot of money without having to feed a speedster. Their former mentors weren't actually aware of the fact that they'd essentially been replaced. They still kept up the act, and by 'they' she means Wally, Kaldur, and Artemis, seeing as they still went on patrol.

Bruce had accepted them into his family, and they were technically Bats at this point. She smiled softly, the thought of their new family almost making her say better, until she remembered who was in charge of their missions. She leapt from rooftop to rooftop elegantly, while Roy stumbled behind her, losing his footing every now and then. She resisted the urge to snap at him, he was making so much noise.

She was used to traveling alone, or with Robin. The two of them were the stealthiest in the group. It was so bad that Conner - Superboy, a Kryptonian - was stealthier than Roy. It might have something to do with the terrain, but Roy protected a city as well, so he didn’t really have a good excuse.

 

Then finally, _finally_ , she saw something. It was out of the corner of her eye, but it was something. In Gotham, you learn that even a slight glimpse of something is always something you need to look into. She abruptly stopped and began trailing after the glimpse of movement. She heard a muffled curse from behind her and she inwardly cursed him. He just drew attention to their position and now the people they were hunting knew where they were.

The small group of people she was tailing froze for a split second before they all bolted. This time, M’gann’s cursing wasn’t internal. She gave up leaping from rooftop to rooftop and instead took off flying. She has more of a chance of catching them if she just flies over all of the obstacles. It’s Roy’s fault that they might end up losing their lead.

They were looking for a group of people who’d been kidnapping and murdering children in very brutal ways. Another child, a little girl, had been taken. They needed to find her before it was too late. This was one of those cases that the police actually contacted Batman about because they _knew_ they were in over their head.

They needed to be taken off the streets, and Gotham’s police really weren’t doing anything about them. Not for lack of effort, but they weren’t exactly good at their jobs. The police relied way too heavily on their local vigilantes. It wasn’t like this in any other city, but then again, it wouldn’t be Gotham without all the crazies and horrible crimes.

 

* * *

 

 

Compared to M’gann, Roy was actually having a good day. He hadn’t been doing much, he’d been looking into different universities, but it was hard to find something that fit his schedule, being a hero wasn’t easy. He’d actually been glad to get called away for a mission. He’d have been stuck in his crappy apartment staring at the paint flake off the wall otherwise.

He’d been a bit disappointed to hear that it would be a mission in Gotham. They’d been getting an awful lot of Gotham missions lately. It was a bit weird. Usually Batman didn’t like it when people interfered with his city. Normally Batman could and would handle his own problems, but he’d been sending them after a lot of gangs and people of Gotham’s underworld.

Don’t get him wrong, he’s certainly not complaining. Fighting in Gotham was different and exhilarating. In any other city it always felt like hero vs. villain, justice vs. injustice, day vs. night. And that filled him with pride at taking down those who were in the wrong. But Gotham was different. Sure there was still the whole justice vs. injustice vibe, but it wasn’t quite the same feeling. It wasn’t quite good vs. evil anymore.

It felt darker. He felt like a predator that was out on the prowl ready to hunt. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. Gotham was dark and the line between good and bad got blurred quite a bit. There wasn’t a single person who was completely innocent in Gotham. It made Roy uncomfortable to know just how _grey_ the city was. So much darkness around _civilians_.

They’re innocents, they should be full of innocence and white or at the very least, very light grey decisions. That was what they were meant to protect, the white aura of a good person. But in Gotham, even the most innocent looking child has such a dark grey aura. Even Robin, the kid with probably the brightest smile he’s ever seen was tainted by this city, and he hadn’t even been born there. His soul was as dark as night. Roy knew the other heroes were bothered by this, it’s one of the numerous reasons why they avoided Gotham.

Another was just how crazy the villains were. The fact that they were once good people, completely normal citizens that had developed mental illnesses bothered them. But Roy did his best to brush it off. He needed to get the mission done, plus it was pretty rare for outsiders to be allowed into Gotham. Despite how dark Gotham is, it’s always interesting in the streets of Gotham.

They had been stumbling (well he was stumbling, M’gann was elegantly leaping) for hours, finding nothing. M’gann had been in a bad mood the entire night, but she seemed just about ready to snap. Then she saw something and took off, leaving Roy in the dust. He grumbled as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, almost falling, but making pretty decent time.

He jumped down a fire escape and ran through alleyways, following the sounds of a fight. He got worried. Sure M’gann was a hero and she’d fought many people and come out on top. But this was Gotham. These criminals weren’t like others that would pull their punches because she’d both young and a girl.

These criminals didn’t care, they’d use any advantage they could get in a fight because all they care about is winning. They might have been fighting in Gotham on a lot of missions, but they were usually paired up. They had someone to rely on if it became overwhelming. (Insert annoying comment about being ‘whelmed’ from Robin)

He crashed into the alley way just as the sounds stopped. His heart was pounding. He didn’t know what he expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t this. In the alley way stood M’gann, waiting somewhat impatiently. The thugs were all knocked unconscious and tied up in a group.

“It’s about time you got here,” she grumbled, “probably woke half of Gotham though.” she walked over to the pile of thugs and nudged one with her foot. “They’ll be conscious in a minute. I have a plan on how to get them to talk, so do you mind just staying out of the way for a bit?” she asked. Roy stared at her, wouldn’t it be easier to just call Robin?

He doubted that she had any experience with T&I. She still seemed pretty innocent, all things considered. But her foul mood was still present (though she had seemed ok at the moment, maybe she was pms-ing) and she had a slightly cold look in her eye. What the heck, why not give her a shot? He’d send a message to Robin telling him they’d caught some people and she can have a go while they wait for backup to arrive.

“Go ahead, I won’t interfere.” he said finally. He walked over to the wall and leaned against it as he sent a message to Robin. M’gann got a calculating look in her eye as she looked at the group of thugs. They were groaning and shifting, a clear sign that they were returning to consciousness. M’gann’s eyes glowed for a second, then she got a slightly devious look on her face.

She began to change her shape as she backed slightly into the shadows, effectively casting them over her eyes. Roy’s eyes had now adjusted to the lightning in the alleyway, was able to see her clearly. She had transformed into one of the little boys that had been murdered by these men. He had only been 7 years old, but he’d been the most obviously tortured. M’gann had left all the injuries exactly how they’d looked on the fresh corpse. (Roy didn’t want to think about how she knew about the injuries.  He’d been to the morgue and he’d almost thrown up.)

They only had to wait a couple more seconds until the thugs woke up. When they did, they began to struggle violently, only succeeding to injure themselves. Once they figured that out, they began to yell and make a lot of noise. Idiots.

No one was going to come. Gotham’s residents had learned that coming out in the middle of the night was basically suicide. A lot of people had fallen for false cries and had ended up being killed. These thugs must be new. But they’d managed to evade them for a while. They did have some street smarts.

“What are you doing? Where are you?” one of them screamed. He seemed to be the most nervous. He was emotional wreck, probably hasn’t killed more than once. He wasn’t hardened enough. That was when M’gann decided to make her entrance.

“Why’d you kill me, mister?” she said softly, her upper lip trembling. Blood was dripping into her eye from a cut above her eyebrow. There was a slash across her throat that was bleeding lazily, creating a rather gruesome sight. But despite those wounds, there wasn’t that much blood on the little boy. The rest of him was covered by tattered and well worn clothes. (He hadn’t been from a rich family, but there was further abuse done to these clothes.) There were some slashed in the material, the edges were slightly bloodstained.

Every part of the boy that was left uncovered was heavily bruised. One of the more vocal thugs turned to stare at M’gann disguised as the little 7 year old boy. His eyes widened and he quickly elbowed the others around him. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Isn’t it that kid we killed last week?” one of them said stupidly.

Roy wanted to face palm. This idiot just confessed. It was a good thing he’d thought to record this. When they turned them in, there had be a lot more proof. “Mister? Why’d you kill me?” M’gann repeated, edging closer to them until they could hear the sound of her blood hitting the ground as it dripped from her wounds. The men seemed slightly unsettled by this.

“How’s he here though? We slit his throat and he was as dead as a door nail,” another thug said in a confused tone. The thugs all exchanged looks. “Plus the kid’s still bleeding,” the thug continued. They turned to get a better look at M’gann’s illusion. She upped the act, making her eyes water and her lip tremble even more, trying to appeal to their humanity and guilt.

“Mister? I want to go home. Can you take me to my mommy?” she asked beginning to cry softly. For any other type of criminal, this might have worked. But this was Gotham, and nothing was ever that easy. The thugs looked at the little boy for about 5 seconds with no reaction before the leader burst out laughing. The others joined in, but they didn’t seem to be feeling it. Some of them even looked uncomfortable.

“Ha! Nice make up kid, but you can’t fool me! Now where’s Batman? He probably put you up to this.” the leader said after he finished laughing. M’gann seemed displeased that her strategy wasn’t working. Roy was about to step in - if psychological attacks wouldn’t work, than maybe physical attacks would - when he heard M’gann’s voice in his head. _Don’t step in until I tell you to._ She nearly growled. Oooh she was upset.

Roy sent her an almost imperceptible nod, and she got back to her charade. Roy wouldn’t step in for now, but if it took longer than 15 minutes, he would. As soon as she got that confirmation, she dropped the cry baby act. It was unnerving to see such a cold look on a child's face. Especially one he knew was dead.

“So you think I’m just a fake, right mister? That I’m just another 7 year old,” she said softly, head tilted downward, allowing the child’s bloodstained bangs to cover her eyes. “But you’re forgetting something,” she singsonged, adding a slightly maniacal tone to enter the child’s voice. Her head snapped up revealing the child’s face. It was even more horrifying than Roy remembered.

The gash above the boy’s left eyebrow was still bleeding lazily down the side of M’gann’s face, but that wasn’t the only source of blood on the child’s face. Instead of the dried tears marks he expected to see down the boys dirty face, there was blood. It was dry, but the unmistakable tracks coming from her eyes and continuing down her face lead Roy to believe that she had just changed the colour of her tears to make it look like she had been crying blood.

That would have been unsettling enough as it was, but M’gann had decided she’d grin. The smile was just a little too wide, and just a little too fake. Combined with the rest of her ensemble, the 7 year old boy looked terrifying. Roy saw a tiny smoke bomb fall from M’gann’s back pocket and fall to the ground. Instead of making a big smoke cloud as it usually was, it let out a small amount of smoke that hung low to the ground.

It created the spooky effect that was associated with ghosts and spiritual activity. That’s actually a smart idea. The technique was really effective in making everything a bit more supernatural and surreal. It was an impressive technique (one that he was sure than Martian Manhunter hadn’t taught her), but that wasn’t all that was impressive. (NO! Not that you perverts)

Normally you’d have to drop the bomb, and that’s not exactly subtle. It was a bit of a tell tale sign when you hid your hand behind your back and suddenly there’s smoke. But the way that M’gann had pulled it off made it seem a lot like a spontaneous fog. It was rather creepy, and it honestly fit the situation perfectly.

"It seems as if you’ve forgotten something,” she sing songed again, repeating herself like the child she was pretending to be. You know that creepy feeling you get when you hear a child ‘sing song’ a nursery rhyme of some sort? Well that’s the feeling that Roy was getting in that moment. It is a horrible slimy sensation that makes you want to shiver. It ignites your primal instincts to flee because something is terribly _wrong_.

She opened her mouth wide, and in that moment Roy was prepared to throw up. The sight was so completely and utterly horrifying. There wasn’t a tongue in the child’s small mouth. There was only a sea of blood, and a stump of what used to be a tongue bleeding lazily. “You cut out my tongue!” she said gleefully, never breaking her grin.

It wasn’t long after this display that the thugs broke and gave all the information that they knew. M’gann sent a message to Robin telling him about where the little girl would be. They managed to save her and get her back to her parents soon after. But Roy was disgusted by what he saw. Since when did they go to such measures?

They weren’t sadistic. They were the good guys, the heroes. M’gann was a teenage girl, her mentors were her uncle, the Martian Manhunter - a man of high morals that rivaled those of Superman, America’s boy scout - and Black Canary, who was admittedly a bit of a seductress, but she wasn’t exactly that dark. Gotham was a bad influence on her.

She needed to get out of her as soon as possible, before she was too corrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm almost done Artemis' chapter, but I've got exams soon. I'll be busy the next two weeks, so idk if it will be up.


	5. Artemis Crock - Artemis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exam week is over! But that also means school is over. Unfortunately that means that the next update might come a bit slower because I wrote all of this at school.
> 
> Enjoy!

Artemis dumped her school bag at the foot of her bed, and then proceeded to face plant onto it. School was always tiring. You know the drill, arrive at school at ass o’clock in the morning, then listen to teachers drone on and on about things that would never prove useful in everyday life and that she’d never think about again after the test, and then there’s lunch.

Even since M’gann, Conner and Wally transferred it’d been a bit better. It was a well known fact that Bruce Wayne had given them all scholarships, and it was a big source of bullying. Wally had gotten in on his own because of his incredibly high grades (who would’ve thought right?), but that only made the other students bully him more.

The stupid rich brats hated the fact that some nobodies from another city got into the elite rich kid school. The fact that Wally was a ‘nerd’ in their eyes (especially because he didn’t play any sports) just made his bullying worse.

If that wasn’t enough, they were openly friends with Dick, the school’s resident Mr. Perfect. He was the teacher’s pet and the richest kid in the school. The fact the he was adopted did nothing to help the other’s jealousy, but they couldn’t attack him for the fear of being attacked by Bruce Wayne. When they saw that Dick had taken a liking to the new transfer students, it allowed them an outlet for their frustration.

They couldn’t even do anything about it, or they’d risk their scholarships. Bruce would be disappointed in them. Other than the bullying, having the other’s there with her was actually great. She no longer sat alone in a corner because she wasn’t a rich kid. She had others like her (down to the fact that they were also superheroes) and Dick could actually talk to her because she knew who he was and there was no risk of his identity being exposed prematurely.

Still, school was tiring and she was a teenager. All she wanted to do was sleep. But life didn’t work out, and karma seems to hate her because not even 5 minutes after she collapsed on her bed, she heard a knock on her door.

Groaning she rolled over and yelled, “what is it?” she was expecting her mom to just yell whatever she wanted to say through the door (after almost being hit in the face with a modified batarang, she learned not to barge in unannounced and uninvited), but was instead scared out of her wits when the door burst open. Almost without thinking she grabbed her bow and let loose an arrow. A split second before she released the arrow, she saw who it was and adjusted the arrow slightly so that it wouldn’t kill him.

(They were still working on her shoot-to-kill instincts, not that Green Arrow was helping at all.)

Her former mentor stood in the doorway shocked, a thin trickle of blood across his cheek from where her arrow grazed him. His mouth was open as if he had been planning on yelling a greeting before freezing in shock.

She winced as she heard the arrow hit the wall. She’d been working with Bruce on developing different arrow heads, the one she’d used had been the one they’d designed to be sharp enough to cut paper just by touching it. If she hadn’t changed the angle she’d have a dead superhero to deal with.

As it was, she’d probably made a big hole in the wall. “Mom! I accidentally shot a hole in the wall again!” she yelled, choosing to ignore Oliver for the time being.

“Artemis!” her mom yelled sharply, “what have I told you? Which one was it this time?” she demanded. Artemis sighed guiltily.

“It was a new one, mom. I finished it last night.” she lied. She didn’t exactly want Oliver to be aware of what exactly the arrow was designed for. He tended to overreact about these type of things. He still didn’t know that she occasionally struggled with no taking the kill shot due to her father’s training. She heard her mom let out another sigh, knowing full well why she wasn’t telling her which one she’d used (she had let Oliver in after all).

“Just clean it up” she said. Artemis rolled her eyes and put down her bow as she turned to look at Oliver.

“What are you doing in Gotham?” she demanded. Her voice may have been a little cool even for her, but she just got back from _school_. That seemed to snap him out of wherever he was when his brain decided to leave the building. He tentatively raised his hand and touched his cheek gingerly.

He pulled his hand away from his face with a very slow movement he looked at his hand and his eyes widened as he realized that he was bleeding. He turned to look behind him, looking back and forth between the arrow that was embedded in the wall (it looked like the shaft had been glued to the wall, there wasn’t any cracks, she was actually really proud of her contribution in its creation) and her. After a couple minutes of uncomfortable silence, he finally found his voice. “How…?” he starts to say but can’t seem to figure out how he wants to word his sentence.

He shook his head before trying again. “Oh, my darling protege! You’re doing so well!” he squealed happily. She deadpanned at his enthusiasm. Of course he’d react like this to her almost killing him. Why was this her life?

“Why are you in Gotham” she repeated, glaring at him. It was more of a demand than an inquiry.

He rolled his eyes at her, “can’t I drop in every now and then to visit my favourite student?” he asked innocently. At her unimpressed look, he caved. “Fine, I admit this isn’t exactly a casual visit” he said, “it’s just you are always on missions with your new team, you never have time to go patrolling anymore. I thought I’d surprise you” he pouted.

She groaned, of course he decided to ruin her day off. Why was he the one superhero she was forced to work with? Taking a closer look, she realized he was already in his uniform. Her eyebrow began to twitch as she got angry. Not only was he in Gotham - in uniform at that - but he _entered her apartment_ in uniform. Needless to say, she was pissed at Ollie’s stupidity.

She groaned and scrubbed a hand over her face. “Fine. Just get out, I need to get changed and grab my equipment,” she sighed. Oliver's face brightened immediately at her decision. He backed out of her room with a dopey grin on his face. Once her door closed she got to work. She knew how impatient he was and didn’t want to risk him banging in on her mid change.

She went to her backpack and opened a secret compartment to pull her spare uniform. Bruce had insisted they had multiple sets of their uniforms so that they’d always be available. It was so they could avoid tight situations. It had come in handy, so they all chose to keep a spare uniform in their backpacks.

Speaking of uniforms, they’d changed a lot, especially since they’d started missions in Gotham. They still had their normal uniforms. Well, Wally chose to keep the normal design. He patrolled Central City and they all knew him as the yellow Kid Flash. So they developed his ‘stealth mode’ a bit more. The others (including herself) had a uniform that was already darker and a bit more discrete than Wally’s _bright yellow uniform_. Bruce simply darkened the shade of their chosen colour and added some black.

Their suits were now more protective, being made out of a flexible Kevlar (that didn’t affect their ability to move - Robin tested, Batman approved) instead of their original spandex with pretty minimal padding.

Artemis was the only one who’s uniform really changed. The others all had power, but Artemis was one of two humans (Robin being the other one) on the team without superpowers (Wally argues that he’s human, hence why ‘without superpowers’ was added to the end of that sentence), her uniform required more. She had been getting seriously injured lately, and Bruce had finally said enough was enough. She now had a bunch of trap on armor that looked like plates on her arms and legs. Everything was reinforced with either Kevlar or steel (her kick will hurt a lot more now ;-).

It was an elegant design and it worked well with her fighting style that was actually very different from Robin’s. She had forgone the awkward full head mask for a simple domino mask like what Robin had. Overall, she looked pretty bad ass. The black armor-esque look making her dark and dangerous, a dark knight in her own right.

But the armor wasn’t all that was added to her uniform. There was also the arsenal she brought with her. Bruce didn’t want her to be defenseless - she did know hand to hand, but Bruce insisted - if she ran out of arrows, so he placed as many hidden weapons (he made sure she was proficient with all of them) as he possibly could.

Once she was dressed she grabbed her bow and headed towards the door. The sooner they left the sooner it would be over and she could crash before doing her homework at 3 A.M. so that she doesn’t fail any of her classes. She’d have to ask Wally for some help in science, her grade had begun to drop and if it went below 80% then she wouldn’t be allowed to participate in Young Justice until it rose again.

She saw Oliver’s eyes widen at her different uniform but she simply brushed past him. “You wanted to patrol, so come on. I’ve got a lot of homework to do for tomorrow,” she growled, shouting at her mom to let her know that they were going out. She tapped her foot impatiently once they got to the roof. “Okay, so I’m in uniform now and so are you, we can’t exactly take the train back to Starling. What’s happening now? Are we taking the zeta tube to the city?” she demanded.

She’d almost forgotten about the zeta beams. Bruce didn’t like how they were so easy to hack (Robin had hacked it as a prank years ago and changed everyone’s name to something that insulted them) so he didn’t have any of them anywhere near the Batcave.

He claimed it was bad for security, but he did have one on the outskirts of Gotham because they did have their uses. “Of course we’ll take the zeta tubes! We’ll just drop by the Batcave and borrow Batman’s!” Ollie called happily, already making his way towards the manor. Artemis wanted to face palm. This idiot couldn’t keep a secret. He knows she wasn’t meant to know that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

“Um, Ollie?” she began, “why are we heading towards Wayne Manor?” she asked, grinning internally. Playing dumb would hopefully remember that he couldn’t reveal one of the Justice League’s best kept secrets. She saw him freeze and she couldn’t help but smirk,”um…” he said fumbling for a reason. That was when she knew she had him.

“There’s a zeta tube near it?” he asked more than explained.

Artemis roller her eyes, “there’s only one zeta beam in Gotham, and it’s not anywhere near Wayne Manor. In fact, it’s in the exact _opposite direction_ ” she said, putting emphasis on the end of the sentence.

She saw realization dawn on him and resisted the urge to snicker. “Of course, I knew that” he said with false confidence. Then they were leaping across rooftops, following Artemis’ lead towards the zeta beam. For a time after that things were okay for a time. Ollie didn’t speak up all that much, that’s until they arrived in Starling City. Then he was talking almost non stop. He literally wouldn’t shut up. He was one of those people who were fully capable of holding an entire conversation by himself.

He was entirely unbothered by the fact that she didn’t respond, he just continued rambling. It was about stupid meaningless things like his latest flings and the drama within the League. No matter how much she’d wanted to ignore the stupid things he said, she couldn’t. The drama within the League (from another perspective - not just Bruce’s) was incredibly valuable information.

Bruce taught them that all information is important, and that they should do their best to gain as much knowledge as possible. So she listened, and some gossip she just had to raise her eyebrows at. Ollie seemed pretty convinced that both Wonder Woman _and_ Superman were after Bruce’s heart. It was rather amusing to say the least.

But then a group of about 30 men jumped them and Artemis could only groan. It was 2 A.M _on a school night_. Why did this always happen? Bruce was going to be pissed. “Are you kidding?!” she screamed as she began to take out the men quickly and efficiently. She’d taken out about 15 men (they were pretty weak for Gotham) by the time that Ollie got to his fifth. Maybe he was out of shape, maybe he was having an off day, but he was on the line between struggling and toying with his opponents. It takes him 3 times as long to deal with one opponent as opposed to what she’s doing.

She inwardly scoffed, it was a waste of time to toy with these pathetic thugs. Bruce told them to never waste time and energy on people unless it was absolutely necessary. These stupid street thugs were not worthy of toying with. They weren’t good enough to even put up a decent fight. She moved on and began to take on some of Oliver’s opponents. But when she reached behind her for another arrow, she came up empty. Cursing, she slung her bow across her shoulder.

Things were about to get bloody.

 

* * *

 

You could say things weren’t exactly going smoothly for Oliver. Artemis was attentively listening to his stories (Roy had always ignored him and told him to shut up) and they hadn’t been attacked by anything large. But then like 30 thugs came out of nowhere and attacked them. Oliver mentally pouted at being interrupted. He had been in the middle of explaining how both Diana and Clark were competing Bruce’s love!

But he didn’t let the thought linger for long. He was too busy enjoying the thrill of the fight. After a couple minutes of silently beating up thugs, he turned to begin a snarky conversation with Artemis. There’s always time for some witty banter in the middle of a battle. But instead, he gaped at his side kick, she’d taken out over half of the thugs? When had his little precious protege learned to fight like that?

He turned back and began to focus on his own opponents couldn’t let his student show him up. He fought harder and ended up taking out another 5 street thugs. There was only 2 left and Artemis took on of them. He was getting tired (wow he was out of shape!) so his movements were getting slower and sloppier.

The thug was about to stab him when dark metal objects flew out of nowhere and pinned him to the wall. He spun around to face Artemis. “You’re getting slow Ollie.” she said snarkily as she walked over to the thug. She knocked him out with a punch - Oliver couldn’t help but wince at the sound the thug’s skull made as it smacked against the concrete - and turned back to face him.

Oliver was still in state of shock. She was so fast, and that came practically out of nowhere. After seeing he wasn’t going to respond she turned back to the unconscious thug and began to detach him from the wall. That broke Ollie from his stupor, and he quickly rushed over to help. He began carefully un-sticking the black blades from the wall like he’d seen Artemis do.

They weren’t like any blade he’d seen before. No wait, that’s wrong. They held a striking resemblance to batarangs. They appeared to be made out of the same metal and they were even the same shape! Could these be _actual_ batarangs?! But where did Artemis get them? And why did she have them in the first place?


	6. +1 The League

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is finally over. I realize that a lot of the characters are out of character, but hey it's a fanfic. I can do what I want. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this incredibly trashy fanfic!

They were currently in a meeting, _without Batman_ . Every now and then, they held a meeting like this. They didn’t fully trust Batman with all of their secrets. For good reasons too, Batman or _Bruce Wayne_ , had known all of their civilian identities from the get go. Meanwhile it’d taken him well over 2 years to tell them his. They were still a little sore over the fact that within 2 years they had not been able to guess the Dark Knight’s identity.

They had their suspicions that Batman knew about these secret meetings and just did nothing about it. It made them slightly paranoid because they never knew if Bruce was listening in or not. But this meeting was a bit different. This is the first Justice League meeting that Roy would be participating in.

They’d thought it would be better if Batman wasn’t there to make Roy feel pressured for his first meeting. “So, is there anything anybody thinks we need to discuss today?” Superman or Clark Kent, asked the ensemble.

“WalyalmosstdroppedtheTricksteroffarooflastweek,” the Flash or Barry Allen, said in a rush.

Clark face palmed and sighed in exasperation. “A bit slower, Barry” he said softly. Barry fidgeted in his seat and looked down at his hands nervously.

“I said, Wally almost dropped the Trickster off a roof last week.” The other League members look taken aback at this statement. Barry could totally understand why. It was quite the bomb to drop on all of them like this. They’d all known Wally for years, they knew just how out of character this was for him.

“Kaldur’ahm beat up an academy student to teach the class a lesson.” Aquaman or King Orin, said softly. He’d looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to reveal something negative about his student.

Apparently the next person to drop the bomb on them would be Superman himself. “Superboy broke into my apartment after he took care of that crisis in Metropolis.” he admitted. Clark hated to admit weakness almost as much as Bruce did.

Admitting that the clone he very much despised had both protected his city and broken into his apartment, was definitely admitting weakness. Roy looked nervous but he spoke up anyway, “M’gann manipulated Gotham’s thugs into giving us information.” he said, putting in his own 2 cents.

This caused Martian Manhunter to actually show emotion. “By mind reading?” he asked after a brief pause. Roy simply went pale and even looked a bit green. He shook his head.

Artemis took out 20 men in the time it took me to take out 8,” Ollie admitted. Ollie was proud, he fully believed that he was one of the best. It had taken Roy forever to convince him a sidekick wouldn’t be dragging him down.

The fact that he spoke up - making himself look pretty ad in the situation he presented - at all was a cause for concern. It had to be pretty serious.

Those who didn’t have a protege looked confused. “I can understand why Barry, King Orin, Clark and even Roy would be worried, but Oliver? Your story sounds like a good thing. I don’t see why you’re concerned.” Diana said. Oliver shook his head before responding.

“I’m concerned about when and where she got her training. And how it went under our radar,” he says. Diana nodded, that did make sense.

“Oh, I’m sure the rest of us want some context on these… concerning stories” she said after a moment of uncomfortable silence.“Barry, you’re up first” she continued. They all nodded in agreement and turned their attention to Barry.

He blushed lightly before beginning his story. “So you know how Batman has been working Young Justice really hard, right?” he asked. The others nodded and Roy shivered, he knew just how hard those kids were being worked. Those workouts were exhausting! “Well it was one of those rare times that Wally and I could actually go on patrol _together_. Of course the Rogues heard and decided to break out all together. We couldn’t rally them all together, so when we finally captured the Trickster, Wally decided to interrogate him. He did this by dangling him off of a rooftop.” Barry told them.

The others were pretty shocked by that. It wasn’t like the Wally they knew at all. It just seemed so weird. “Wally is friends with the Trickster and the other Rogues, no?” King Orin asked slightly confused. He’d heard Kaldur talking to Tula about how Wally couldn’t hang out because he was busy having a sleepover with the Rogues once. He didn’t entirely approve of the fact that the Flash let his protege hang out casually with his villains unsupervised, but at least they didn’t want to hurt the young hero.

“That’s my point!” Barry exclaimed, “it makes no sense at all! They were so friendly with each other, like 2 weeks ago!” he continued, completely baffled by Wally’s behavior. Diana nodded before turning to King Orin expectantly. Looks like they’ll be going around the room and explaining how all of their proteges had suddenly shown weird behavior.

“As I’ve said before, Kaldur beat up a student to teach a lesson.” he began. “He had come to visit Tula and Garth for a couple days considering he got some time off from leading Young Justice. They invited him to sit in and perhaps help teach one of their advanced classes. His attendance was to boost moral. But apparently one of the students mouthed off to him when he corrected a stance, so Kaldur turned him into an example and completely humiliated him in front of everyone.” The Atlantean explained calmly.

If Wally suddenly dangling his friend off of a roof was shocking, then Kaldur the super calm and kind leader, humiliating a student was a whole new level. The League knew that Wally sometimes had issues with his emotions, and they understood that. He was a teenager after all. But Kaldur? He was always calm and kind and gentle. He’d never done anything mean in his life.

Even as an enemy he wasn’t ruthless or cruel at all. But to be deliberately mean to a student by humiliating him in front of his peers? That wasn’t something that he normally did. That wasn’t something that they taught. That’s not even how they taught anyone. The only way he could have been exposed to things like that would be through public school, but as far as they knew Kaldur didn’t attend a public school.

His upbringing was simply too different. This caused a lot of eyebrows to raise. Even Clark looked confused, and he rarely spent time with the teenage heroes. But it seems it was his turn, and he reluctantly began to elaborate on his previous accusation. “Well you all know how Metropolis fell under heavy attack a week or so ago.” He began carefully, choosing his words with care.

“I was unable to help as I was trapped by my job, and I was about to call in one of you to help me control the situation. But the clone arrived before I could. He took care of everything and then publicly declared that he held no connection to me. I was understandably confused,” he explained. “Then when I returned to my apartment with Lois, he was there. He’d broken into my apartment, gave a small speech that was incredibly disrespectful, revealed his existence to Lois, and then disappeared.”

Unlike the previous two, this revelation wasn’t all that surprising. They’d all seen the news, so they’d known that it was Superboy who had held down the fort and not Superman. They’d even heard the public declaration. It also was no secret that the relationship between Superman and his clone wasn’t exactly pleasant. Clark seemed to resent the existence of the younger Kryptonian, and the feelings were mutual.

It wasn’t all that surprising that the boy had gone out of his way to be cold towards Clark. Roy mentally gave Conner kudos for finally confronting his old man. He understood what it felt like to have a strained relationship with the person that was supposed to mentor you. The other heroes were also mentally shunning Clark because he let a teenager not only take care of his city on the day that everything went to hell, but he also was able to break into Clark’s apartment. You’d think a League member would have better security than that.

After a moment of awkward silence as everyone judged Clark for his past and current actions, Roy spoke up, bringing the most disturbing story yet. “I was on patrol with the team, when we split up. They always had someone pair up with me when we were in Gotham, and we were on a mission to find a little girl who had been kidnapped. We had cornered the guys and were waiting for backup when M’gann decided to interrogate them.”

He shuddered, remembering how sinister  the atmosphere had been. “She transformed into one of the dead children, including all of his injuries, and then she tortured them psychologically until they caved. Other than the transformation, she didn’t use any of her powers. It was terrifying.” he admitted softly, shrinking back into his chair.

Everyone shot each other looks at the slightly haunted look in Roy’s eyes. They couldn’t believe this. If Kaldur was kind and gentle, then M’gann was an angel. They couldn’t reconcile that story with the image of M’gann that they had. How could a happy go lucky cheerleader who baked cookies every Friday and helped out at homeless shelters, psychologically torture people into giving her information. Even if it was to save a life and catch the bad guys, that was cold and lower than the heroes usually stooped.

They didn’t believe in those types of methods. It was wrong, they were the good guys. But a lot of these things were toeing the line between good and bad. Oliver didn’t even try to lighten the mood at that point. Usually he’d be the first to start cracking jokes and trying to lift the mood. But he knew Roy.

Roy was strong, and he rarely showed others his weakness. The fact that he wasn’t afraid to show the others just how terrified he’d been of the female Martian spoke volumes about how serious he was. “Well, I didn’t exactly share everything that happened.” Ollie said slowly. “I had gone to get Artemis from her apartment where she lived with her mother. I didn’t knock when I went into her room and she nearly shot an arrow right through my head.”

The others looked at him strangely. Whether it was about the fact that his current protege almost killed him or the fact that he entered the room of a teenage girl without knocking, was undetermined. “Then we went out on patrol and we got caught by a gang of about 30 men. I was busy so busy taking people out, I almost forgot to check on Artemis. I don’t know if I’m just out of practice or if she’s just gotten _that_ good. But by the time I’d taken out 8 people she’d taken out 20.” he finished.

They sat in silence for a long time. All the League members who didn’t have a protege who was a member of Young Justice were thinking over all of their stories. Finally, Diana spoke “I think all of you need to talk to your proteges. You should head over to Mount Justice now. I believe they should all be there,” she said before sending a look towards Black Canary in a silent question.

Dinah shook her head, “I haven’t actually been to the mountain in months. Batman has taken over all of their training.” she admitted to everyone. Diana’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline.Then she made a shooing motion and dismissed everyone, claiming the unofficial meeting was over.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take them long to get to Mount Justice. It was a simple matter of finding the nearest zeta tube and zetaing over. They arrived expecting to find the place lively and full of noise. They expected to find M’gann cooking in the kitchen with the help of Robin as Artemis chased after Wally because he’d annoyed her and Kaldur and Conner watching something on the TV. But instead they were greeted with silence.

The entire place was empty and incredibly clean. The kitchen was empty, and it didn’t look like anyone had been there for a while. There was a layer of dust that had settled on everything. They looked around, searching to see if they were simply in the training room instead, but that room was empty as well.

“Hey, it’s no biggie right? It’s the middle of the day… they must just be at school!” Barry tried to reason with himself.

“It’s Saturday you idiot” growled Superman. He was not in the mood for this. His clone, who was dangerous and could become a public menace at any time, was missing and doing who knows what. They needed to find everyone as soon as possible. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the clone was holding everyone hostage.

But Barry was worried for a completely different reason. “OHMYGOD! What if Wally has collapsed because he didn’t eat enough? I’ve noticed he’s been eating less lately, do you think that’s the reason why he’s been acting differently? Oh my gosh I can’t believe I didn’t notice! Wegottofindhimlikerightnow-” he was cut off mid rant by Oliver patting his shoulder gently.

“There’s a logical explanation for all of this. Don’t worry… the kitchen doesn’t look like there’s any food left in it! Wally must have eaten everything and they’re going grocery shopping.” He tried to assure him. This made Superman raise an eyebrow.

“Do you really believe that Queen? All of them felt the need to go grocery shopping? That’s just stupid.”

Oliver glared at Clark. “No one asked you, Kent.” he said sharply. They searched all the rooms and wandered the mountain for a while before suddenly Roy seemed to realize something.

“Hey wait a minute. Didn’t Dinah say that she hadn’t been here in months because Batman had taken over their training? Batman would probably know where they are. We can just head over to the cave!” He said excitedly.

Barry’s face completely lit up and he rushed over to the zetabeam. They ran after him, Oliver yelling after him, “Hey! The only zetabeam in Gotham in on the other side of the city! Batman doesn’t have one that leads to the cave for some odd reason!”

 

* * *

 

Wally was running around and fighting some robots that were fighting back. Most likely a prototype for some sort of training simulator. But there was something different about how he was training. It was the fact that, while he was running really really fast, he wasn’t running at his usual speeds. It was only fast for an average human (even compared to an average non-meta superhero it was pretty fast).

At first Barry didn’t understand why he would be running that slow - everyone knows how speedsters hate going slow - but then he caught sight of the collar that was around Wally’s neck. He’d only seen that type of collar a few times, and it’d been when they’d arrested metahumans so that the metahumans couldn’t access their powers.

Why would Wally subject himself to this. It felt so horrible sometimes going slow, and Barry knew that he sometimes had panic attacks about losing his powers. Speed means everything to a speedster, and to be forced to not use your powers was awful. But despite the horror and over protectiveness he felt at the moment, he couldn’t help but be impressed by how fast Wally was moving without using any of his powers.

He was taking out those training bots like a pro. But then the feeling of anger rose to the forefront of his mind once again. How could Batman do this to his precious nephew? This is practically torture! It wasn’t right!!!

While Barry was silently fuming, the Atlantean king’s and Oliver’s eyes were drawn to a different part of the room. There was a section of the cave set off for what looked like a sparring area. The only problem was that there was no practice mat laid down, there was only rough rocky terrain. The only reason they knew it was a sparring area was because it looked like someone had removed a bunch of rocky protrusions.

Although it definitely wasn’t the best job. The ground was uneven and there was still sharp edges everywhere. It was pretty hazardous terrain and definitely not somewhere you wanted to train. But there stood Artemis and Kaldur. They seemed to be discussing something as they both held dangerous looking blades. Artemis was holding hers with confidence, while Kaldur seemed a little more nervous to be holding a blade instead of something made out of water.

Artemis demonstrated a move, and watched carefully as Kaldur repeated the move. The way the blade moved was very different from how his water blade moved, but Oliver could see that he had a natural talent for the knife. Artemis seemed satisfied with how he performed, although there was a slight frown on her lips. Then she launched herself at him and they were battling it out, slashing at each other violently without hesitation.

Kaldur didn’t even blink an eye at her attack and simply responded with his own. King Orin’s eyes widened as he saw how Kaldur didn’t even consider holding back while fighting the human girl. He was giving it his all and viciously attacking her. The king was worried that he’d seriously injure the girl and moved as if to step in, when the girl got the upper hand and began backing Kaldur into a corner. She won the match and was panting lightly, but only as if she went on a 5 minute jog and not just had a vigorous fight with a skilled hero.

Kaldur looked slightly more tired, but he smiled at Artemis anyway, and they both launched right back into the fight, going for yet another not so friendly spar. Oliver didn’t know what he thought about all of this yet. He was surprised at Artemis’ skill with a knife considering as far as he knew a bow was her main weapon. But he wasn’t all that pleased with how much power Kaldur seemed to be putting behind his strikes. Every time it missed her he created a rather large dent in the rock. If the knife made contact he could cut off a limb.

Superman didn’t like being in the Batcave. He didn’t even want to be here. He still believed that Superboy was out meeting some villain and exchanging information, but he’d been dragged along by the others. He wasn’t expecting to see his clone here, there was no way that Batman would let a security risk inside his lair, let alone know his secret identity.

But there the clone was standing, well standing is probably the wrong word to use. The clone was leaping around, gaining more and more height with each jump until he was touching the roof of the cave. Once he’d reached that height and had no false landings about 10 times, he stopped jumping so high. Instead he seemed to be jumping and flipping as well as doing different cart wheels.

He had just finished an entire floor routine (what? Lois liked to watch the tumbling competition during the Olympics and forced him to watch. He learned some of the terminology) when he sighed heavily and grabbed a bottle of water before walking over to where Robin and M’gann were.

Roy was staring at the two with worry. There were a series of different trapeze thing set up attached to the ceiling of the cave. Unlike the sparring area, there was actually mats set down around the floor. But there was no safety net. Roy stared in Worry as M’gann and Robin were flipping around and falling from the trapeze. He was worried because M’gann wasn’t using her powers even though she was falling.

It looked like Robin wasn’t going to be able to catch her, but then he did. She looked completely relaxed, if not incredibly excited as she flipped along with Robin and flew without her powers. It was quite the shocking sight, but there was still Batman’s whereabouts to consider. They looked around and saw that he was standing over a workbench fiddling with some sort of material. There were mannequins beside him covered in cloth. There were 6 different ones, each having a different body type, although the two female ones were of similar measurements. They looked suspiciously similar to the young heroes, and they were even wearing a variation of all of the heroes uniforms.

It seemed that he was working on Superboy’s, as he placed the piece of material on the arm of the mannequin. It looked like he was making some sort of arm brace. Everyone was so confused about what was happening. But then Superboy’s eyes strayed from where they were watching Robin and M’gann towards them. They saw his eyes widen before he put two fingers to his lips and whistled sharply.

And just like that everyone stopped what they were doing. Robin and M’gann had flipped elegantly off of the trapeze and stood in defensive positions beside the Kryptonian. Artemis and Kaldur had frozen mid slash before they both turned to where Conner was staring raising their blades calmly. Though, they showed surprise in their expressions. Wally had taken out the last robot and was breathing heavily, but even he got in a defensive position before he realized who was standing at the entrance of the cave.

Bruce had stopped working on Superboy’s suit and turned to face them with a bemused look on his face. “How did you get in here?” he demanded harshly. They were frozen for a moment, staring at the almost identical glares that all the teenage superheroes were throwing their way. They looked like the early days of Batman Batglare. Not quite at Bruce’s level, but pretty close. Then they were all talking at once.

“We were just looking for the kids-”

“Why are they here and not at the mountain?”

“They know your secret identity-”

“What do you think you’re doing? They could seriously injure themselves or-”

“Why don’t you have a zetabeam?”

They all asked at once. It was complicated, and Conner’s glare only intensified at how gobsmacked the older heroes were. Because honestly, they were supposed to be professionals, but right now they looked pretty stupid. Bruce rolled his eyes and motioned for the others to continue their practice. They shot him a worried look before getting back to doing whatever they were doing before.

Although they were a lot more tense than they were before. Conner went back to executing perfect back flips and cartwheels, Robin and M’gann began to flip and catch each other yet again, Wally set up another simulation, and Artemis and Kaldur began to spar again. Though none of them were completely focused on their individual training. They all had both an eye and an ear trained on the conversation Bruce was having with the League members.

Batman was staring unamused at the League members. “Do you want to ask your questions one at a time?” he said in an unimpressed tone. The League members exchanged worried glances before asking their questions in order. “We were just looking for the kids because they weren’t at the mountain” Roy explained nervously.

“Why are they training here and not at the mountain?” King Orin questioned softly.

“They know your secret Identity?!” Superman growled harshly.

“What do you think you’re doing? They aren’t wearing any protective gear, they could get seriously injured or worse!” The Flash exclaimed in a panicked state.

Then Oliver decided to throw in his own 2 cents and asked a really dumb question that got the rest of the League members to facepalm in exasperation. “Why don’t you have a zetatube?”

Even Bruce shot him an incredulous look at that question. Oliver looked offended, “What?!” he asked indignantly. Bruce shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to have to deal with these idiots right now.

“Ok, the team is training here because they live here.” That got a bunch of indignant squawks, mainly from Barry who was horrified that he’d had no idea his nephew had been living in Gotham. “And yes,” he continued, sensing what Barry would ask next, “they do attend Gotham Academy under scholarship together. And Wally’s parents have given me permission as well as temporary guardianship as long as he’s living in Gotham.”

Barry let out a little choking sound and Roy pounded him on the back trying to reassure him that everything was ok. It was awkward. “And yes, they’ve known my identity since they all moved in. As for what I think I’m doing… I think I’m looking after 6 teenage heroes and training them so that they’ll survive, because like it or not, they live in Gotham now, and Gotham isn’t a nice place.” Then he shot an exasperated look at Oliver.

“I don’t have a zeta tube because it’s a security risk and I don’t like people dropping in unannounced. Like you just did” he said and sent them the Batglare. They all gulped in fear - yes, even Superman despite his foul mood at the fact that Bruce seemed to trust teenagers more than he trusted them (considering it took him less than a year to tell them) - before backing up slightly.

That’s when Superboy decided to speak up. “I believe you’ve overstayed your welcome. I’m sure you can escort yourselves out, Alfred has better things to do.” he said dismissively. Ouch. He sent a glare in Superman’s direction and Bruce nodded in agreement.

Clark looked shocked, “You’re just going to let the clone talk to us like that?” he demanded.

Bruce raised an eyebrow highly unimpressed. “His name is Conner,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion, “and I find that I agree. Get off of my property, and do not come back to Gotham unless you’re invited.” he said as he ushered them out of the cave before closing the entrance to the cave in their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I'm planning another Young Justice fic. This time it'll be a oneshot. It's gonna be pretty angsty, but I don't know when it will be up... but as for the title, I think I'll call "A Bouquet of Alstroemerias"
> 
> *Update* that story is up... I tried for angst don't know if it worked.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates might be a bit better than other stories considering I'm writing this in class instead of on my free time. I'm almost done the second chapter.


End file.
